ROME, Aug 15 (IPS) – Corinne Fleischer, WFP regional director for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe, describes Gaza as “a very bad situation that is getting worse.” For the past two weeks, 21 United Nations World Food Program (WFP) food distribution sites have been closed under evacuation orders.
“UNRWA says 86% of the Strip is under an evacuation order,” he said in a video call from his office in Cairo. Fleischer visited the area in July.” 2 million people are crammed into 14% of the area.”
Despite Great Challenges, WFP Continues to Help Gazans
With ongoing evacuation orders forcing WFP to disrupt food distribution sites, targeting the most vulnerable groups becomes a challenge. We provide ready-to-eat meals, hot meals and nutritious meals for breastfeeding women and young children.
“We support our partners in almost 80 kitchens, where they cook food, pack it and serve it to the people in the camps,” explained Fleischer. He previously visited Gaza last December. “Then, it was about how we deliver the food – it still is,” he says. “Now, at least we have a dedicated WFP mission on the ground.” Our main achievement? “We have helped prevent a major famine from happening,” he said.
There are currently almost 500,000 people in IPC5/Catastrophe, the highest level of food insecurity on the global scale of food insecurity – down from 1.1 million people earlier this year.
Fleischer is keen to highlight the positive effects of humanitarian aid to success. “At the moment, we are not delivering enough food to Gaza,” he said. “We are not delivering what we have planned for this month because we do not have enough crossing points that we have opened. We need all the crossings to be open and full.”
“The operation is very complex,” Fleischer said. “We are working in a war zone. The roads are damaged. We have been waiting for hours at checkpoints for the green lights to go.”
WFP, he stresses, also works to support the wider humanitarian community. “We lead the Logistics Cluster (interagency coordination mechanism) and support our partners to bring their goods to the Jordan tunnel. We receive their goods in the north at the Zikim crossing. We help them in Kerem Shalom. , yes, we also help with fuel.”
There is no safe place in Gaza
“The Gazans cannot get out, and they are asking to get out,” Fleischer said. “They are very tired. There is no place – one tent after another all the way to the sea. The streets are full of people.” Meanwhile, the breakdown of sanitation systems, water shortages and waste management means that diseases such as Hepatitis A, which spreads among children, are allowed to spread.
Children eat WFP hard biscuits in a makeshift camp in southern Gaza.
“We are lucky that nothing happened to our wonderful staff – over 200 UNRWA staff were killed,” he said. “That is unacceptable.” He adds: “We have amazing security officers who advise managers on what risks to avoid, so that we can live and do our work safely and families can receive our help safely. But the risks are great. They are very high. We have ammunition nearby, convoys, we are there repairing the roads, we are there with our trucks.
On the road to recovery, the private sector has a role to play, says Fleischer – take store reopenings. “If you think about a way of life, hope, or a sense of normalcy, that’s when basic bread is back on the market,” he said of the bakeries that have reopened with WFP support. “Bakeries need wheat flour, they need yeast, and diesel as well – and that’s where we come in.”
High Prices Keep Basic Food Out of Reach for Many Gazans
In the south of Gaza, “basic food items are gradually appearing in the food markets. You can actually find vegetables, fruits in the markets but because the prices are high, they remain unaffordable for many,” he says “And in any case, people don’t have cash.
Fleischer is committed to humanitarian efforts to get to the point where people “stop eating the things they were eating nine months ago” – to separate the food that relies heavily on canned food (provided by WFP) and whatever people can get their hands on.
“I have never seen this level of destruction.”
Fleischer’s biggest fear about Gaza “is that this doesn’t end. That we continue to have a very small area of people who have nowhere to go back. Even if they go back north, where can they go?”
“Everything is flattened, the houses are gone, they are destroyed. We need a long period of suspension that leads to peace in order to work.”
Fleischer, who has served with WFP in Syria and the Darfur Region of Sudan, adds: “I have never seen this level of destruction. Hospitals and clinics are destroyed, food processing facilities are destroyed. Everything is destroyed.”
However, “There is this attitude of not giving up from the people, from the families we serve,” he said. “I can’t believe that the children are still running to you and laughing with you. They probably see in us that we have hope that all this will end – a sign that they have not been forgotten.”
This story first appeared in WFP News on August 8, 2024 and was written by the WFP Editorial Team.
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© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
